Hi hackers,
I’ve been lurking for a while but have decided to post about a project I am considering and would be keen on some feedback. I haven’t really seen any discussion about this specifically so here goes.
I’m considering implanting several very small magnets around the most sensitive parts of my face. Something like what is depicted in the pic below.
I am thinking of using small (3mm x 1mm) N52 disk magnets coated with an electroplated gold and vacuum deposited titanium nitride coatings. My brother’s a chemist so the specifics of this are his responsibility
My reasoning behind this is to increase sensitivity by simply having more magnets, and hopefully gain some detectable differential effects across the magnet to give some spacial resolution of the magnetic field. Ideally this would allow for a greater amount of correlated sensory information available to the brain which may allow the brain to interpret a more detailed “picture” of the fields around you (similar to how distributed radio telescopes can resolve greater detail) and may even give a kind of magnetic depth perception similar to our binocular vision.
I should state that i have yet to implant a magnet but am having tonnes of fun with nfc chip implants.
If anyone knows of anyone who has tried this, or has other criticisms/feedback/advice, please let me know!
Thanks turbo
I’ll be sure to keep this in mind and play around with different coatings and do some thorough tests.
The primary reason why i started thinking about facial implants is because I am a climber and suspect that that the repetitive pressure on a magnet in my finger tip would create thick scar tissue around it and/or break the coating if it’s to brittle or flakey.
Since i don’t plan on supporting my body weight with my face i assume there will be greater tolerances in regards to coating, but of course i don’t want exposed neodymium in my face so will be taking necessary precautions. Beside full titanium encapsulation, does any coating method stand out as most suitable?
Nice, I was just going to post that plus “Now it’s a regular retail product!”
No more waiting for crowd funding, and it’s much cheaper than it was.
Amal is bound to see this thread, he has also been playing with some more encapsulation of magnets, They wont be as small as the TiTAN but I imagine they will be a cheaper option.
In all reality though, If you want the best option ( In my opinion ), I would suggest you go down the TiTAN path, yeah It will cost more, but you get what you pay for, you don’t want to cut your face open to put in potential substandard magnets and non-proven coatings that you may then need to extract…
We tried titanium nitride coatings on gold and nickel and even phosphated neodymium, but at the end of the day we just couldn’t solve a few inherent problems with the nitride, and an overwhelming percentage of magnets would fail after around a year or so. We revised our accelerated testing methods and found that essentially out of 1800 or so magnets that we produced, nearly all of them failed within a week.
I’m basically taking some nickel coated magnets that someone sent me and coating them with our polymer. The major down side is the tedious nature of dealing with the magnets and the exceptionally large margin of material required around the circumference. More info coming soon-ish.
Thanks for the response @amal.
Your dedicated dt-club-members have convinced me that your TiTAN magnets are probably the best way to go. Once I save up a bit more I’ll start by getting a pair installed as a preliminary and, if I notice some promising results, build up from there.
Have you heard of anything like what I am proposing? I doubt this is an original thought but i haven’t heard of any distributed sensing for increasing spacial resolution. Do you think this is plausible or am I barking up the wrong tree?
cheers,
Nick
If you’re willing to start small, why not install one in each ear (tragus), this could work double duty as an implanted speaker. Satur9 has been working on this. Besides, ears are fairly sensitive and might make a good location for your sensing intent.
Thanks @ODaily. Yes, tragus has been one of my considerations and I certainly appreciate the audio-tactile aspect of this location (interesting read). My primary aim is to gain greater directional/depth sensing and so distance between neighbouring magnets will be a big consideration, since smaller magnetic fields would require closer spaced magnets to detect a differential due to the inverse square law. At this point I’m thinking spider-bites (lower canines) to start off with, but of course everything is still TBD
Once I get them installed I’ll post a report.
